EVENTS

Congratulations to Norway!

On 11 June 2013 it will be 100 years since Norwegian women gained the right to vote and Norway became a true democracy. Norway was the first independent country in the world to introduce universal suffrage, with women and men enjoying equal democratic rights.

It’s amazing that it’s only been a century — I can’t imagine the injustice of depriving women of the right to vote.

I know some representatives of other countries who comment here will be quick to complain that Norway wasn’t the very first—but they’ve got that covered.

Globally, Norway was a universal suffrage pioneer. It is true that three countries had already introduced universal suffrage – New Zealand in 1893, Australia in 1902 and Finland in 1906 – but they were not independent states at the time. Norway was the first sovereign state to extend the vote to all adults. The right to vote gave women a formal foundation on which to participate in democratic bodies on an equal footing with men.

You’re all pioneers, OK? Clearly there was a wave of suffrage that swept around the world at roughly the turn of the last century.

But this goes too far.

A cause championed since the French Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment had finally been won.

Comments

On the Ann Coulter thing, “Coulter stood by her comments, arguing that every election since 1950, aside from the 1964 Barry Goldwater election, would have been won by Republicans had it not been for the woman vote.”

I’m not American, so I probably shouldn’t comment on this, but I’m going to anyway. Surely her logic is backwards, is that not an argument to take the vote away from men?

What David Gerard@1 said – Australia was independent in 1902, when women got the vote in all states (they already had it in some states). However, this was only for federal elections; some states didn’t extend the franchise for state elections.

Thanks to Queensland and Western Australia, women didn’t get the right to vote or stand for election until 1920 and 1919, respectively. And at the local government level, the city of Launceston in Tasmania didn’t permit women to stand for council until 1945.

(Then, of course, there was the way we didn’t even acknowledge the indigenous population as citizens until 1967 – but that, at least, wasn’t split on gender grounds)

Norway did it across all government levels, including the right to stand for election. (NZ in 1893 didn’t permit women to run for office, for example). They were the first independent country to do so.

Deep in the fetid bowels of Republican National Headquarters, a think tank stews…

“Gentlemen. We need to guarantee Republican victories in every election. How do we do that?”
“Get rid of the women! They tend to vote for Democrats!”
“Good, good.”
“Also the blacks and Hispanics.”
“I see, I see. So who can vote.”
“White men! Y’know, but not those manginas… we’ll weed them out eventually.”